The original model of a digital camera is the electronic still camera, and Sony's Mavica put on sale in about 1981 is the first to be practically used. Since then, CCDs as image pickup devices have been becoming highly accurate and reducing cost, and memory cards as recording media have been gaining larger capacity and their miniaturization. Further, semiconductor chips based on JPEG as the still picture compression/coding system have appeared on the market. In association with these advanced technologies, the current digital cameras are progressing in their minimization, reduction of cost, and high performance.
Rapid spread of mobile telephones, minimized portable personal computers, and common use of PDAs represented by Sharp's Zaurus make the environments, under which the equipment is used during movement, get much better. Under such environments, the digital camera becoming widespread as an image input unit is connected to a personal computer and a network. Further, the digital camera is becoming one of the most important elements in the multimedia system as a capture device for capturing not only images but also any image information such as voice memos and motion pictures.
The digital camera has also been expected as a candidate of a wearable computer, that is, a computer that a person puts on, in addition to the feature as the capture device. This aspect of this digital camera has been more actively developed in recent years together with the mobile telephones, PDAs, and pad-form personal computers. Further, the digital camera has been desired to be provided with more advanced functions such as the function of connecting to the Internet, the function of managing personal information, and the function of making a presentation. In particular, a simple method for preparing a document with images using the digital camera has been demanded. There have also been needs to simplify data processing and data management of Web information with the digital camera that has the connecting function to the Internet. This simplification is realized by handling the Web information for a Web page in the same manner as that of handling data for a picked-up image.
There is a disclosure, for example, “Function-adding method for digital camera” disclosed in JP, HEI10-341396A. In this method, such technology that a program can be introduced from the outside in order to add desired functions to the digital camera by being provided with two processes as follows. One of them is a first process for receiving a program stored in an external recording medium and recording the program in a storage medium of the digital camera. The other is a second process for reading out the program from the recording medium of the camera at any time to execute it.
However, this Function-adding Method for Digital Camera in JP, HEI10-341396A has a problem such that forgetting to take the picture of a required subject or omitting doing some jobs can not be prevented.